Would it be possible to not select the $ symbol when using Shift+Ctrl+[Arrow Key] to select PHP code?
Chances are the user (well, me, anyway) wants to change the variable name itself and not remove the entire variable along with its $ identifier, and without having to type the $ symbol again.
If this could be extended to also delimiting on the \ character - again, the user probably wants to change just the trailing namespace as opposed to changing/removing the entire namespace - that would be awesome!